“Assault Weapons” Anti-Gunners Want to Ban Them, But Don’t Want to Define Them

So one important thing for me to do in the intelligence side of the gun debate is to watch the C-list gun control advocates.

See the A and even B-list figures are all having their speeches and public statements approved through the corporate machine. This is why when you listen to anti-gun politicians or lobbyists talk you often hear the exact same phrase again and again, and even more you often see trending talking points. Like back in the early 2000s activists referred to firing multiple rounds through a semi-auto firearm as not a “Pull of the trigger” but as a “Finger twitch”, trying to somehow state what they had always attempted, that semi-auto is really almost the same as full auto.

That “Finger twitch” line was EVERYWHERE for about a month, and then it VANISHED as quickly as it had appeared. That talking point was crafted by the messaging experts (in the case of Finger Twitch, that came from inside the Brady Campaign) and it was communicated to all official spokespeople that this was the new term to use for “Semi-auto”….and then when polling showed that it wasn’t working, a new message was given out….NO LONGER USE “FINGER TWITCH” IT HURTS THE MESSAGE!!!

You see this with the March For Our Lives kids. March For Our Lives is a Bloomberg owned company, it’s no different than The Trace, Moms Demand Action, or any of the other anti-gun groups under the Everytown Umbrella. Not only were kids like Emma Gonzales and David Hogg flown around the country on Daddy Bloomberg’s dime, their speeches and talking points (and I wouldn’t be surprised if reporters were given sample questions) were also supplied by Everytown employees.

Because of this, I’ve watched dozens of speeches and media appearances by these Parkland kids, and there has consistently been NOTHING of substance on what they say. They hate the NRA, They hate anybody who might be affiliated with the NRA, they talk about “Gun Death”, they talk about their experience in the shooting (which I really can’t blame them, or fault them at all), They talk about youth voting, and they frequently repeat some meaningless catchphrase like “We Call BS!”

They don’t talk about laws, or solutions. That’s pretty consistent with the Corporate Anti-Gun Lobby, they give opposition to the 2nd Amendment as a whole, but they offer no alternative…until there is a law either up for a vote or up for referendum. Then if the law fails (which it most often does) it is totally abandoned.

See Tom (or Mike Weisser for that matter) isn’t part of any anti-gun lobby group (Mike has some little lobby group that may or may-not still exist, but its so ineffectual it hardly counts) but they are voices frequently USED by the anti-gun lobby because Mike owns guns and a gun shop here in Massachusetts and LOVES gun control, and Tom is a scientist so his opinion can’t be questioned!

To Tom has always been against so-called “Assault Weapons” or “Weapons of War” as he calls them, but like most Anti-gunners he knows them when he sees them, but can’t define them! He starts with a recap of the 1994 AWB:

The manner in which weapons covered by the ban were defined also undermined its effectiveness. The federal ban and current state laws define “AWs” by their features, some of which are irrelevant to the harm the weapon can produce. Under the 1994 ban, an assault weapon included semi-automatic rifles capable of accepting detachable magazines and possessing two or more of the following features:

Folding stocks for concealment and portability;
Pistol grip protruding conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;
A bayonet mount;
A flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; or
A grenade launcher.

Definitions based on these features create a loophole by allowing manufacturers to circumvent the law simply by making minor modifications to a weapon. For example, removing flash suppressors and bayonet mounts makes a weapon no less dangerous but can get around a features-based definition.

Now what Tommy won’t talk about is the INTENT of the law. See the anti-gun groups want to ban ALL guns, period, full-stop! But they know they can’t do that. They started in the 60s with calls to ban all handguns (really you could even say the first attempt was the NFA, and that’s why barrel length and overall length are relevant in that law, they were defining handguns and forcing every $25 revolver to have an additional $200 tax in the 1930s) but Americans WANT handguns, they’re what we use to defend ourselves! So they stepped back from that. Note I didn’t say “Abandoned” if you don’t think Handgun Control Inc is any less against handguns when they changed to the Brady Campaign, you’re an idiot. Also Michael Bloomberg sure did a lot of work as New York Mayor to make sure the plebeians diddn’t get their hands on handguns.

But in the 1990s AR-15s were ONLY made by Colt, they were expensive, they looked funny, and so not many people owned them. Same with AKs, they weren’t expensive, but they were more rare, subject to import restrictions, AND they were the ENEMY weapon in the Cold War which was a war of optics, not bullets.

The antis thought MAYBE they could ban ALL semi-auto long-guns…..but there were too many hunters in the way, and back then Hunters were the main lobby arm for the 2nd Amendment. So the feature list was simply looking over what were the unique parts of guns like the AR-15 and AK-pattern. Muzzle devices, bayonet mounts, folding stocks, inline stocks (which require a separate pistol grip) ect.

The idea what cut off a small number of semi-autos first, then slowly draw the ban in closer and closer.

It was a MASSIVE tactical error, and thankfully one they continue to make.

Now in Tom’s previous anti “weapons of war” posts he refuses to define them….even gets asked in the comment section to define them. He doesn’t. He still isn’t going to in this post, but he gets closer:

To address this void, I propose identifying the most dangerous firearms and regulating them, not on the basis of what they look like but on their ability to kill and injure as many people as possible in the shortest time frame. National gun expert Mike Weisser proposes a method of scoring the lethality of a firearm on the basis of five factors:[8] This system is an objective one which is not influenced by cosmetic modifications intended to circumvent regulations.

Caliber – Larger and faster projectiles tend to cause more damage to human tissue, although the design of bullets and the materials used to make them are also important;
Capacity – The number of cartridges that can be fired without reloading;
Loading mechanism – The speed at which a rifle can be reloaded;
Action – Time required to fire a single cartridge and bring the next cartridge into the breech;
Design flexibility—the ability of a firearm to accommodate accessories, some of which increase lethality (e.g., lasers, electronic aiming devices, fore grips).

Once a scoring system is in place, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has the expertise and facilities in place to evaluate each firearm on the market and give it a lethality score.

Cool now he’s talking a “Lethality Score”….but note he isn’t defining a score, he’s saying the ATF will do it for him. Why? Tommy is a researcher, he can’t come up with some sort of scoring system? Hell even Mike came up with a scoring system, you can read it here spelling and factual errors and all (PDF) (BTW jus skimming it, it seems that a huge part of his “research” was just making stuff up out of thin air), but there is no definition, and let’s be honest his criteria as so vague as to question if he A) Has no idea what he’s talking about (My vote) or B) Simply wants to keep the options open to cover EVERYTHING.

Like “Action type”: He isn’t saying semi-auto….but let’s face it, it doesn’t matter if you have a simple blowback hi-point carbine, or a DI AR-15, or a long-stroke Mini-14, the numbers should be all the same….but I wonder if he’s also trying to lump in pump and lever action guns….of course he won’t say.

This is the whole point of the post 2004 Assault Weapons crusade, don’t define the terms….or in the case of California, re-define the terms every few years. Maura Healy is on record with this:

Hear that? Massachusetts will NOT release their criteria for defining “Assault Weapons” because it will invoke a “Cat and Mouse Game”. More like, if you define an “Illegal Assault Weapon” then gun makers can COMPLY with the law. You don’t call a rifle with a 16″ barrel, or a Bullpup with an OAL of 26″ a “Loophole Short Barrel Rifle” because it fucking isn’t an SBR!

I strongly suspect that they don’t want to define them, for two reasons.

First, if they had a nice, solid definition, then they wouldn’t be able to expand it to other types of guns. So long as the definition isn’t solid, they can play a “cat-and-mouse game” with gun owners and dealers, about whether or not their gun is or should be legal.

Second, if they had a nice, solid definition, it would make it all that easier for “gunsplainers” to explain why the definition is stupid, which in turn gives those “gunspainers” a little more sympathy and leverage.